Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-09-10
IN TIE CEMETERIES.
DESCRIPTION OF THE crescent
ClTY'S QUAINT GRAVEYARDS.

New Orleans Queer Tombs and Inscrip.
tions-GnarIed Oaks and Funeral Moss.
A Spot Where Everything In Bright
and Clean-Marble Houses.
GLOW will we get into the cemeteriesY'
we ask the friend who has pointed ont tho
car that will take US to three of the most
noted. 1.-THE gates are always open; there
will be no trouble about entering" The
car starts; she bows and trips down the
street-a dear little Lady In widows dress
Ito her work In a great office, while we
spin along on our holiday jaunt to the
place OF the dead. A white wall, gnarled
oaks, with their sad funeral moss, glossy
magnolia trees, with white buds scarcely
showing in their tight calyx wrappings of
green-that Is II first outside view Of
the cemetery. Then, through the open
gate we walk into a place, level, green,
moundless. 1t is n Of the older ceme-
teries, an avenue of superb oaks conducts
through it's center. The spectral moss
rocks back and forth across the shadowy
way. 1t has no rustic, n sound. It
seems a symbol Of an old yet unforgetting
grief; u sign of a sorrow for the dead
after it has subsided FROM tears and sobs.
vi titc JULIUS Ill CulS cemetery are
carved the old French names, with crosses
or ~crests; and on projecting hooks fastened
In the cement of the wall hang remem,
ORANGES SO ugly hat even loving sentiment
cannot make them other than dissertations
to the eye; those skeleton wreaths OF black,
wire strung beads that shine with a
mockery of mourning, or those chalky
white ones that seem like clowns in a
tragedy. How grotesque appears human
ity's expression of deepest feeling beside
the gray moss that mourns overhead and
bright roses that smile from below, where
sweet natures sympathy and consolation
mingle in this place of bereavement 80
tenderly, so t%astefully.
Ont Of this old cemetery we 90 to q
neighboring one, dazzling rs this one is
somber. Here the moss, and the beads,
and the foreign anne serve 10 make one
feel out Of this world, in a lonesome place
apart from ones own. But in the neigh
boring spot death Is beautiful, Joyous
never a cemetery that seemed so brilliant,
so clean, SO clear. There Is no sign of the
ancient oak, all the trees are glossy of leaf
and perfumed-magnolias that rustic and
shine, and break u anon in fairest and
widest of flowers. The grass is not
'hn "''A St"VSc, ~ nc SIlIOotu duu
clean, stretched out into the sunshine
without flower or headstone. The walks
are wide, weedless, formed Of finely pull
verified white shells. Along these white
roads, like dwellings along a street, are
the family tombs, entirely above ground.
each separate, in its own urfenced yard Of
green.
I SMALL DWELLINGS.
Nh <o,.hn n~1 as.Is A. - ~ -
end six or eight from the edge of the road,
each approached from the roadway by a
narrow marble footwalk. They are of
white marble and shaped like small dwell
ings. They are w or three stories In
height; that is, about ten or twelve feet
and proportioned neatly; the roof, Of mar
BILE, is turreted, gothic, domed or pagoda
shaped. The effect of these marble
houses, close on either side the avenue,
with the little spaces Of green between
them and the wide, unbroken lawn back
Of them, the tombs following the curves
OF the road, and leaving in one sheet the
level ground between. give an order and
sense OF breathing space such as our own
graveyards can never have. The marble
doors of the palaces of the dead shut
within. In the little ~dooryards are always
cNSb vi IL tffofScs0 hllu, 30 luut Vic
white road, accumulated by the white
structures at a uniform distance back
from 1t, Is so bordered along its edge
by these adjoining flower plants as
to make o continuous parterre Of
color-the only relief in the white
and green Of the large cemetery
grounds. There are no flowers anywhere
else. The effect is exquisite-the effect
produced by separately massing colors;
the curving road, white as untrodden
snow, the long lines Of brilliant flowers on
either side, edged by the wide rows Of
glis,ening marble tombs, backed by tho
green grass and scattering trees, which
make the center Of the place a park like
expanse.
In another cemetery, a little more
tangled than this, and q little less somber
han the other, ! was attracted by an inn
mense pyramid shaped structure of rough
granite rocks, some twelve or fifteen feet
square at its base. 1t wa of unusual size,
shape and color, and stood near the en-
trance portal. / remember that the in
scription commemorated the virtues Of n
dead wife, and depicted the longing Of the
living consort; it stated how long they
had lived together, that they had no child,
and were all the world to one another
that the bereaved husband was the last O,
his race and family, and this tomb held all
that was precious to his heart. Chicago
Times.